Spanish Folk Songs

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SPANISH FOLK SONGS

BY THE TRANSLATOR OF

THESE FOLK SONGS

SHELLEY AND

CALDERON

and Other Essays on English and Spanish Poetry

SPANISH FOLK SONGS SELECTED AND TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

S.

DE

MADARIAGA

CONSTABLE & CO LTD LONDON-BOMBAY-SYDNEY

First published

1922

P R E F A-^E-

TH

E

intellect

difficulty that

is

barbaiia

conceited. It

it

is

with

recognizes that the

of man can approach truth and beauty through shorter if less sure ways than the dismal scale of rope* woven by thought. But then, instinct and genius

spirit

get there intellect

Je

The

all the same, and turning to the can say, like the nun in Cyrano,

nai pas attendu

votre permission.

Spanish people have not waited until

the labours of well-meaning reformers

them to the status of learned newspaper readers in order to seek truth and beauty. They just looked around them with eyes that could see and sang with

raised

hearts that could feel. The result is a popular poetry which it would be difficult to surpass. I have elsewhere critical

attempted a sketch of the Spanish people con-

sidered as a collective poet *

and endea-

See my essay on Spanish Popular Poetry in l Shelley and Calderon and Other Essays, Constable 1920. *

b

ix

{

VEllSrTY

OF

C

*

PREFACE voured to justify my belief that it is one of the great creative poets of Europe.

Numerous

songs,

most of which

the

reader will find again in this selection,

were there quoted as examples of the main features of Spanish poetry. But the question may arise: Are these marvels really popular? To this question there is but one answer: they are. Both form and substance prove it. The form of Spanish popularpoetrydiffersin more ways than one from that which, for lack of a better term, we might describe as ' intellectual.' And first as to rhyme and metre. Rhyme is rarely used by the Spanish people. Its popular substitute isassonance, or the identity of all the vowels after the

tonic accent in the corresponding words.

who have chosen age-long fidelity of the Spanish people to assonance a proof of their 'backwardness.' Yet French and There have to see in

been'critics'

this

PREFACE English poets are beginning to realizethat assonance is a subtler instrument for verbal

harmony than that obvious rhyme

whichVerlaine condemned in afewamusing lines of his Art Poetique. Assonance requires as its background the contrast with unrhymed lines. Hence the usual device of Spanish popular songs, which consists in lines alternatively

unrhymed

The type of this and assonanced. arrangement is the cuarteta, the most frequent form of Spanish popular song: Eres una y eres dos, Eres tresy eres cuarenta, Eres la iglesia mayor ,

Donde

todo

ehnundo entra.

You are one and you are two, You are three and you are forty, You are the parish church, Open to everybody a couplet of four lines in which I and 3 are unrhymed while 2 and 4 are assonanced. ;

xi

PREFACE This arrangement

is

misunder-

often

stood as a succession of two lines of sixteen

but,whatever the historical reait might be defended, such an explanation of the cuarteta overlooks the real value oftheunrhymedlines, which syllables,

sons on which

is

to provide a neutral

background to the

musical effect of the assonance.

The

cuarteta

is

an almost universal

stanza in Spanish popular poetry.

pro-

It

vides the song for such different musical

forms as the Jota(Aragon), the Malaguena (Malaga), the Granadina (Granada). In

some

cases

repetition of

the song

some of

is

lengthened by

its lines.

This

is

for

instance the case with the Jota, the song of which is made up of the four lines of a cuarteta 2. 3. 4.

sung 1.

in the following order: 2.

We find

here a

first,

I

and by no

means only, caseofthatstrikingindependstrict logical sequence which is

ence from

a typical feature of Spanish popular poetry. xii

PREFACE The seguidilla

is

after the cuarteta the

form most generally used. It is also based on an alternance of unrhymed with assonanced lines, but the fact that these lines are of an uneven number of syllables (respectively seven and five), gives it a rhythm of remarkable sveltnessand grace.

Delpoho de

la tierra

Saco yo coplas.

No bien se acaba una Ya

tengo otra.

Of the dust of the earth Can I make songs. One is scarcely over, A new one comes. It is

sometimes followed by a refrain or which is another seguidilla less

estribillo, its first

line:

A la Cruz de la Encina No vayas, primo,

P or que y a la paloma No esta

'« elnido. xiii

PREFACE Prime, no vayas, Porque ya lapaloma

No To

est a

'nde est aba.

the Cross of the

Don

t

go,

my

Oak

cousin,

For, in her nest, the dove

You' 11find no longer. Cousin, don

For, in her

You

The flavour

t

go,

nest, the

11 find

dove

no more.

of this form

is

so popular

that an intellectual poet cannot adopt

naturally and spontaneously.

it

This does

not mean that the seguidilla is never to be found in works of conscious poetry, but then the poet is deliberately dressing in popular garments. A similar remark applies to other forms such as the soled, a tercet with its first and third linesassonanced and its middle line free: xiv

.

PREFACE Me comparo con elcuervo. Todos visten de alegria,

Yo

visto de luto negro.

I see myself as a crow. All are wearing clothes ofgladness, Clothed in black mourning I go. or the alegn'a:

Cuando va andando, Rosas y lirios va derramando.

IVhen

she goes walking,

Roses and

lilies

she goes a pouring;

forms which are unmistakably different from anything produced by Spanish intellectual poetry, and have a seal of their own, due mostly to the restraint and pithy

brevity of their expression

These are not the only features which prove that Spanish popular poetry is a thing in itself and not merely a by-product of literature. Thus,

it

observe that the popular song

is is

easy to usually

PREFACE built

up

in a special

way of its own, which

it from the poetry of For the intellectual poet poem even if he began by

again differentiates conscious

art.

thinks out his

just feeling or 'guessing'

popular song so,

is

while the

it,

given as seen or

felt.

And

whereas the cultivated poet develops

theme according to a logical which is reflected in grammatical

his poetic

process

expression, the popular poet usually bursts into song through the line of impulse,

which being the shortest is not necessarily the most logical nor the most grammatical. Here is an example: Como dos drboles somos Que la suerte nos separa, Con un camino por medio ,

Pero sejuntan

las

ramas.

Like two trees we are By fate separated.

The road is between But the boughs are ?nated. xvi

:

PREFACE The

picturesque grammatical disorder

somewhat

of this song, translation,

tidied

up

in the

the impatience and

reveals

spontaneity of the popular muse.

ample more striking

to be

still is

An

ex-

found

in

the following gipsy copla:

Limosniya

ar probe,

Ddsela por Dios. Porque ^/pobresiyo camina herido Del ma I del amor;

which might be translated:

Alms

to

the poor

man

Do give for

God's sake.

For

man

the poor

is

wounded

Of the wound of love.

We can see here the popular making of

it

straight for the

imagination

main idea

in front

(alms), then trying to redress the ex-

pression as best it can after this impulsive and perfectly ungrammatical beginning.* * Cf.

with Shakespeare, Sonnet viii to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?'

'Music

xvii

PREFACE All the coplas are not of course equally

But the frequency with which such violent shortimpulsive and irregular.

cuts through the language are taken for

the sake of rapidity suffices to give to

popular poetry a flavour all its own, and which, so far as form is concerned, make it

independent from all intellectual leader-

ship.

So is

a

much

somewhat

stance,

in

subjective meaning.

poetry, really

Now, the mood is

is

As for substance, it word must take in poetry

form.

for

plain that this

of Spanish popular poetry

That

a thing apart.

it is

unsophisticated

not a sufficient description of

often, despite

the

Sub-

means mood.

its

work of the

it,

for,

self-conscious ability,

intellectual poet

phisticated enough.

But there

is

is

unso-

in

the

people a kind of freshness as of the morning, an indifference to art, an earnest eagerness for expression, which can only xviii

PREFACE be imitated, never spontaneously struck,

by the intellectuals. The secret of it all is that Spanish popular poetry is disinterested. Intellectual consciously or unpoetry usually aims

—

—

own now the imitation of classical models, now the creation oforiginalforms, now brilliancy, now didactic utility, now

consciously

at objects outside its

scope:

the defence of some cause or idea. Spanish

means an exception to this But Spanish popular poetry is. For

poets are by no rule.

aims at nothing. It falls like a ripe fruit from the tree of experience, and thus attains without effort a character of fatal perfection even in most trivial details and of serenity even in its most passionate moods. Hence that independence from logical sequence of which we have noted more than one manifestation. The poetrv of it

the Spanish people, like that of

all

true

xix

PREFACE poets, findsits unity in theroots of inspira-

and feeling rather than in the order This wandering freedom of inspiration is sometimes considered as mere incoherence or as due tion

and

figure of external form.

to a fortuitous association of disconnected fragments of songs. No doubt that may be now and then the case. But it may be taken for certain that such chance associa-

tions are either dissolved as easily as they

were formed or else, if they last, will prove to be due, under the apparently capricious accident that brought them about, to a deeply poetical bond felt by popular intuition.

The editor has endeavoured to preserve in his translation as

much

of the popular

flavour of the original as possible.

task

was by no means

possible, stanzas

easy.

The

Whenever

approximately

like the

original cuarteta or seguidilla have been

adopted and a more or

xx

less

successful

PREFACE assonance has been preferred to rhyme. The rule has been to respect above all the

mood, then the words, then if possible Some songs, however, are mainly remarkable for their form, and then the stanzas.

a certain liberty has been taken with the text in order to render the verse-arrange-

ment. Such is the case, for instance, with the two examplesof ^«/V/7/